Starving Tumors of Their Blood Supply

About a third of common cancers may be prevented by eating a healthy, plant-based diet; being physically active; and maintaining a healthy weight. One of the ways plants may help is by cutting off the supply lines to cancerous tumors.

A tumor cannot grow without a blood supply. Currently, it is believed that a tumor mass cannot exist in a volume greater than about the size of the ball at the tip of a ballpoint pen without a proper blood supply. This indicates that angiogenesis, the creation of new blood vessels, is critical to tumor growth.

Each one of us has cancer cells in us right now. One study describes how “by age 70, microscopic cancers are detected in the thyroid glands of virtually everyone. Most of these tumors never cause problems or become clinically significant, leading to the concept of ‘cancer without disease’ as a normal state during aging.” Cancer cells are commonly present in the body, but they can’t grow into tumors any bigger than that tiny dot size–no more than 10 million cancer cells–before needing to get hooked up to a blood supply. One way cancer turns on the tap is silencing certain tumor suppressor genes. How do we turn them back on? See, for example, Apple Skin: Peeling Back Cancer.

Another way tumors commandeer a blood supply is by diabolically releasing angiogenic factors, chemicals that cause new blood vessels to sprout into the tumor. The most important one is called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). But we may be able to suppress VEGF with veggies.

Many of the phytonutrients we know and love in tea, spices, fruit, berries, broccoli, and beans can block cancer’s stimulation of new blood vessels. They’re ideal for prophylactic long-term use against breast cancer because of their reliability, availability, safety, and affordable price. A recent review concluded that we now have “convincing evidence that dietary plant constituents possess the unique ability to affect tumor angiogenesis, which may be deemed advantageous in the prevention and treatment of human breast cancer and other tumors.”

Most of these studies have only been done in a petri dish, though. Researchers stimulate human blood vessel cells and they start forming tubular structures trying to make new capillaries to feed the tumor. This tube formation can be substantially blocked by adding add plant compounds such as apigen or luteolin, found throughout the plant kingdom in foods such as citrus, celery, and peppers. In a study outlined in my video, Anti-Angiogensis: Cutting Off Tumor Supply Lines, you can see the effect of fisitin, a phytonutrient found in strawberries, shrinking the beginnings of new blood vessel formation. How else can strawberries smack on the cancer kibosh? See Strawberries versus Esophageal Cancer and Cancer Fighting Berries